Teaching a child how to take notes early will help the child immensely later when note-taking is required on a daily basis. Before students learn how to take notes, they need to understand how to write an outline for a paper. A properly written outline makes essay writing immeasurably easier and properly taken notes will look much like an outline for an essay. Knowing how to write an outline will help children understand how to organize notes during a lecture.
Note-Taking Exercise
In order for students to understand how to take proper notes, they need to be given the opportunity to practice. One of the best ways to teach these skills is to give a 3 minute lecture on some topic, have the student take notes and write up a test on the material.Teachers should not give students a piece of blank paper, a pencil and begin talking. While many children are taught to take notes this way, it is not the most efficient way to learn or teach note-taking skills. Instead, make an outline on a piece of paper for the students to fill in the information as they listen to the lecture.
Provide enough space for notes, and be sure that all the important parts of the lecture fit into the outline. While it is true that not all lectures will fit nicely into an outline, it is also true that well prepared lectures will fit nicely into an outline, and this is the best way to introduce note-taking to children.
Once the child has taken notes from the lecture, teachers should not immediately grade the work. Instead, the students make their own quiz on the material. This will help the students assess the important information in their notes and provide the teacher information about what the student gleaned from the lecture that is not obvious from the notes.
Providing Feedback on Student Notes
After this exercise is completed, the teacher should have conferences with each student if possible to review the notes and the quiz with the child. Ask questions:
- “Why did you choose to include this information in your notes?”
- “How did you decide to include this question on your quiz?”
Provide feedback on information that the child should have written down and how thorough the notes were. If individual conferences are not possible, hold a class discussion to identify the strong and weak points of the notes and quizzes.
Some children will naturally take copious notes and have too much information included on their quiz. Others will take scant notes and struggle to write the quiz. Through repeated practices of the note-taking exercise, every student will learn to improve their skills and become better note-takers.
Teachers may also be interested in tips for teaching students to stay organized.
Jennifer Wagaman - Jennifer is a mother of 2 and has both public, private and administrative experience in the education field.
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